This blog may help people explore some of the 'hidden' issues involved in certain media treatments of environmental and scientific issues. Using personal digital images, it's also intended to emphasise seasonal (and other) changes in natural history of the Swansea (South Wales) area. The material should help participants in field-based modules and people generally interested in the natural world. The views are wholly those of the author.
Wednesday 30 June 2021
Pigs in Radioactive Clover?
The tsunami-generated nuclear disaster in Fukushima (Japan) has had interesting effects of the local wild boar populations (https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/radioactive-wild-boars-rampaging-fukushima-nuclear-site-japan-a6972361.html). The boar have been enthusiastically breeding in the human exclusion zone around the former nuclear plant. Breeding has also involved domestic pigs that escaped, at the time of the tsunami, from the area's farms. This has produced some interesting hybrids (e.g hairy pink pigs with spots). The Fukushima boars are gorging on the radioactive vegetation in the region. Population numbers also mean they damagingly raid farms next to the exclusion zone. The numbers of boars shot by farmers has increased from 3000 in 2014 to a current figure of 13,000. There is little evidence the boars have been damaged by radiation but they must be moving potentially dangerous material out of the exclusion zone..
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